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MySQL co-founder leaves Sun

Citing problems with corporate working, David Axmark, a cofounder and former lead engineer for MySQL, has resigned from Sun Microsystems. Sun acquired MySQL for a billion dollars in January 2008. Axmark, who in recent months has been liaising with the open source community and speaking to the press, said " have thought about my role at Sun and decided that I am better off in smaller organisations" in his resignation letter.

Kaj Arnö, MySQL VP of community relations, said in his in his blog, "David is the reason MySQL is FOSS. Without David, MySQL wouldn’t be GPL", adding that Michael Widenius, another MySQL founder, originally planned a closed-source product. Arnö is reported to have said Axmark disliked the mundane things of working for a large company such as turning in expense reports, ordering travel and having to change his email address to "@sun.com".

Axmark will be consulting for Sun in the future, according to Arnö. Axmark's resignation comes just over a month after rumours that Michael Widenius had resigned, which were later found to be not true.